If Looks Could Kill . . .

Our little girl. So small, so young, yet so full of personality already.

Linda and I both had business to tend to, so we were unable to make it in to see Alicia this morning. This was the first time when neither Linda nor I was there to be with Alicia since she was born. We asked Linda's cousin to go visit Alicia for us so she wasn't all alone. But man, you'd think a child this small wouldn't know the difference. But, oh, Alicia knew.

Earlier this morning, Linda called the NICU to check up on Alicia. The nurse who spoke to her told her that Alicia had her eyes open at the start of visiting hours in anticipation of our arrival. She kept waiting and waiting and we didn't show up. Finally, the nurse realized we probably wouldn't make it, so she went over and told her that we weren't going to be coming today, and she finally closed her eyes and went to sleep.

As if that weren't adorable enough, tonight when we made it back to see her, she once again had her eyes open waiting for us. Now, it could have been my imagination, but Alicia gave us this gut-wrenching look like, "Where have you been? I've been waiting all day for you!" My heart got all twisted up in knots seeing my girl give me that look. (I think I'm in trouble. She's got me wrapped around her little tiny pinky.) We apologized and apologized and told her we didn't want to be away from her, but we had to take care of some things. She just kept looking at us like we had totally let her down. Eventually, after singing some songs and just holding her in our hands, she settled down and went to sleep. Hopefully all is forgiven. =)

Such a personality at such a young age already.

We also saw Licia perform a new trick tonight. When we got to her bed, she was lying on her stomach. Suddenly, she stretched her legs and raised her butt in the air in an inverted V. We were quite impressed. She has a lot of strength in her legs. She did this at least 4 or 5 times during our short time with her tonight. Good sign, I think. She's got good muscle strength! Praise the Lord.

As for the stats:

She's 896 grams today, dropping down two grams from yesterday's 898. We had hoped that she'd break the 900 mark today, but that's OK! Tomorrow is a new day! =) Our little girl is definitely getting bigger and bigger and healthier and healthier. We're so happy. =)

We asked about her eyes today, and since her last checkup about two weeks ago was good, the doctor felt that he could probably just come back every few weeks instead of every week for a checkup. So her next checkup will probably be next week sometime. We're thankful for good news in this department.

She's still getting shots of EPO to help her produce red blood cells. I think she'll have two more of these shots over the next two weeks and then she'll be good. Thus far, she's been doing well in the anemia department and hasn't had to have any blood tests or blood transfusions, so another great improvement.

Breathing continues to get better and better. She's having fewer and fewer apnea spells and her vent settings are lower and lower. So that's great news. I hope soon she can be off the vent for good, and then we can maybe start holding her.

She still continues to eat and digest well. The girl goes through a pack of 40 diapers in about a week. Crazy! But that's a good sign. She's not collecting anything in her body.

The physical therapist will probably come back in a week or two to do a followup on Alicia and see how she's doing. From what we can tell, it seems like she's got pretty good muscle control, and she's pretty strong. So we pray that that will continue!

Thanks for praying everyone. Please continue! Your prayers are definitely making a huge impact.

If you wouldn't mind continuing to also pray for the babies around us as well. Pray that the Lord would minister to the parents and to their kids. And that they would all come to know him through their time in the NICU.